as well as the reflection on his management, Maximilian preferred to economize in a different direction, and believed that this could be most effectively done by reducing, or at least keeping down, the costly and not very efficient Mexican army.
This project was wholly to the taste of his French advisers; for the national army, instead of being placed on an effective footing corresponding to the gradual withdrawing of French troops, met with every possible check from Bazaine. In a letter to Maximilian, the latter declared that he could not afford to leave garrisons in the towns, but recommended the formation of militia bodies to act in accord with the flying French detachments, which were deemed best for operating against the Juarists; yet he threw obstacles in the way, even, of arming the towns. The explanation for this lies in the secret articles of the compact with Napoleon. It is readily understood that the French emperor may have had reasons for desiring to retain control of the country, besides the prestige and good pay drawn from the employment there of an army; and this is evident from the policy outlined by Forey, and forced upon the regency, aiming, above all, to secure the pecuniary interests of France, which depended greatly on confiscated church property. The conservatives being decidedly opposed to this policy, it was necessary to render them harmless by reducing their power in civil as well as military departments, and limiting to narrow proportions an army which naturally would side against French rivals and intruders. To this end even Miramon and Marquez, the leading Mexican generals, were sacrificed by honorable exile.[1]
In June 1864 the imperial forces embraced 35,550 French and 20,280 Mexicans, the latter distributed
- ↑ The former to Berlin, to study Prussian army organization; the other on a more flimsy religious mission to Jerusalem, combined with the position of minister to the Porte. 'La Inglaterra habia puesto por condicion para el envio de su ministro, el destierro de los generales,' says Rivera, Hist. Jal., v. 632.7
